Every dwarf will like at least one type of booze and may like none to several food ingredients. Dwarves are more likely to get happy thoughts from eating food and drinking booze they like, since it boosts the meal's effective value.

A dwarf's preferences (and disliked vermin) tend to feature in artwork the dwarf makes more often than subjects not listed in a dwarf's profile. For example, a mason that likes cows for their haunting moos and absolutely detests bats will make statues of both. This is presumably out of love for cows and horrified fascination for bats.

A dwarf working with a material they like or creating items they like will produce higher quality goods. For example, a mechanic that likes olivine will generally make better olivine mechanisms than granite ones. This is most important during embark, when individual personality profiles and skills can be best matched up according to your specifications.

It has been noted that preferences have an effect on how dwarves perceive the value of a room and furniture, though the exact details are not yet known.

A mason who likes horses will often make statues of one or two horses, or even statues of themselves admiring horses. This can be great if the mason is chronically depressed: surround their bed with images they like, and they will be happier.

If your monarch absolutely detests large roaches, a ☼platinumstatue of a large roach☼ in their bedroom will not count fully towards the noble's room value requirement (although they'll still admire it without complaining about the subject matter).[1] This problem can be avoided by carefully selecting the statue that is going to be built by expanding the material selection menu.

Since images will feature both objects the worker likes and dislikes, engravings and other images featuring various vermin can't be avoided entirely, but they're generally not frequent enough to cause notable problems.

Nobles only give mandates and demands that accord with their preferences. For this reason, a good way to ameliorate the annoying effects of nobles is to nominate a baron who has no preferences for anything craftable. This baron won't issue any mandates or demands!